


fear itself

by faktory (ecchi_blanket)



Series: a series of small flames [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Pathological Lying, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:45:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2628989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecchi_blanket/pseuds/faktory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hadn’t begun as a way to cover up weakness, for him―it was how he'd learned to be strong in the first place. </p><p>[Or: some bitter medicine to swallow.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	fear itself

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this took so long (if anyone is reading this at all lmao), but i'm a slow worker and combined with real life shenanigans i barely have the time to churn out a couple lines of original fic, let alone feel inspired enough to write for someone else's characters.
> 
> also, i should note that not every subject will be one of the Strawhats (stay tuned for the next chapter! it should be out more promptly than this one was). and that the whole sort of conglomeration of the Sabaody-Impel Down-Marineford trilogy is what's really being explored here, because different parts stand out as major traumas for different people but everything is ultimately connected. buuuuuuuut i digress.
> 
> here is an Usopp. enjoy his misery.

When he opens his eyes, he doesn't scream.

He doesn't do anything, actually. Just lies there, arms and legs splayed out like a starfish, wondering at the size of the sky and the span of a second. That’s all it had taken. That’s all.

That’s all.

His bones ache from the crash landing, and the canopy of flowers above him is still twisted with vertigo. He feels clumsy and desperate, like a sea king cast ashore by a great storm. He doesn't remember how he got here―only the way that he'd opened his mouth, called out to his captain, and had the winds knocked out of him just as quick and twice as quiet. After that, only snap-blurs of wild blues remain, tangled in the words he hadn’t said which now leave his lungs empty with unease.  _I should be dead,_ he thinks.  _But I’m alive._

Usopp spares himself the private thought that such things really shouldn’t come as a shock to him anymore. After all, he is strong  _(lies)_  and brave  _(more lies)_ and he’s survived worse  _(there is nothing worse)._ A true warrior must always expect the unexpected―must fear nothing, not even fear itself.

(But Usopp has always been a coward.)

In his year at sea, he has been forced to face a great deal of his fears. But he had never expected this―this terror clutching at his heart like a sieve, the hollow feeling surging out from under his skin which renders him motionless, stuck in this godforsaken Usopp-sized hole in the dirt of an island full of colors he never even knew existed. He can't run and he can't hide, but he can't fight either.

There's just _..._ nothing.

He should’ve seen this coming earlier. Should’ve cut his losses and saved himself the grief. But he was _proud_ , so proud, and so twisted up in his own fables that he’d let down the very people he’d been striving to protect.

His mother had taught him that sometimes lying could be merciful. Kaya had taught him to forget the distance between truth and lies. The Usopp Pirates had taught him to lie for the sake of others. Most of all, he had taught _himself,_  in his years as an orphan and a pariah and a leader,that sometimes lies could be vessels of hope. It hadn’t begun as a way to cover up weakness, for him―it was how he'd learned to be strong in the first place.

And it had worked,  _miraculously_ so, and for far longer than it should have. But today, with no heavy-plated mask between himself and the world, and no method to his madness, he’d come to realize that all the strength had never really been his to begin with.

That was some bitter medicine to swallow, wasn’t it? For as many problems as it might have solved to admit these things ages earlier, they’d tasted like a poison swill and even now he’s not sure he could’ve kept it all down, had it come any earlier than it did. Like ripping off a bandage, peeling back these farces always stole away a part of him, too.

But telling the lies? _That’s_  easy. There’s nothing to it. Really, really nothing. Sometimes he slips into his own stories without even knowing. It’s the simplest way to quell his pride, too, simpler than telling the truth or letting go of fear or learning the difference between bravery and hubris. So whenever he’d fought, he’d fought on the edge of his lies in the place where he could almost be a hero. And he’d won, and he’d won again, and eventually started to think _well maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe if you tell a lie enough it even starts to become the truth. Maybe―_

And then the Marines swept in like a great flood and drowned him where he stood.

He’s trying not to think about that part, though, because the space below his eyes is wet and heavy and the fauna are blurring into shards of color, but he tells himself he isn’t crying,  _no way, no how._ This time he isn’t really sure if it’s the truth or not, and he’s starting to believe it doesn’t matter anyway. Just like the colors, the once-great distance between truth and lies has long since blurred into something thick and swampy and insubstantial, filling him in the places where wind and words used to be.

He's _terrified._

Because when he closes his eyes he doesn’t see truth or lies, he doesn’t see cowardice or bravery; he sees the way that Brook had so assuredly rushed to take a blow meant for him, or how Sanji had shoved him from the monster’s path, fire-eyed and without a speck of regard for his own life, or even the look on his captain’s face as he’d had the heart ripped from his chest despite all number of bargains and capitulations. He sees that he had taken and given nothing in return and now he is alonealonealone (and the way he screams it in his head it sounds like mourning bells) _,_ left to face this ugliness borne of his own construction. He hadn’t been ready. He doesn’t think he could ever be ready.

And yet, here he is.

The bushes to his right rustle menacingly, and he thinks (cold and distant below the fear) that with his luck it’s probably some kind of gigantic, flesh-eating monster. But then the ground begins to rumble, and he can feel his brain rattling against his skull where it jarrs up the voices to match the pictures and he remembers:  _three days, in three days I have to, I have to fight, I have to live, I―_

_I’ll do right by him this time._

The vine cluster bursts forth from the bush like a sentient beast, sending chunks of soggy dirt flying as it sways. And okay, he maybe screams a little at the sight of it. It’s a gigantic, menacing thing, poised for attack with its thickly-barbed vines sharpened to a throat-slashing edge. The barbs cut through the canopy of petals and its tendrils beeline for... _his head, holy shit!_

It misses by about a meter as he rolls himself out of harm's way, arms shaking and he tries to regain some semblance of composure. Clambering to his feet, Usopp retreats towards a cluster of the least dangerous-looking trees around, groping blindly for his slingshot. When he finds it, bruised and cracked and at his beck and call, his grip sweats and his eyes still sting with grief and his aim is shaky at best but he knows, he  _knows_  that he cannot lose this battle. He isn’t strong enough, never has been, but maybe there’s something to be said for admitting his weakness in the first place. There has to be something. There has to be.

Because Usopp thinks he wouldn’t mind swallowing his pride, or the truth, or any other poison, if it meant the chance to bring his family home again.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: Usopp’s chapter on Boin Archipelago was titled『一人じゃ死ぬ病』(roughly translated: the “being alone will kill me” disease).


End file.
